We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Mara Fitzgerald. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Mara below.

Mara, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s jump to the end – what do you want to be remembered for?

Roughly 4% of sports media coverage is dedicated to women’s sports. Shot Clock was created to help level the media-coverage playing field.

I hope our legacy becomes not only providing more women’s sports news, data, and content to those seeking coverage, but also provide thought-provoking analytics that help equalize how society views women’s sports.

If we can help move the needle towards pay equality, equitable media coverage, and mutual respect between men’s and women’s sports, we’ve achieved our mission.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

My name is Mara Fitzgerald and I am a co-founder and now sole-proprietor of Shot Clock Media, a women’s sports media platform.

I created Shot Clock in 2018 with my sister Caroline, now owner and CEO of Goals Sports, because we were frustrated by the lack of women’s sports coverage available to sports fans.

As former athletes, Caroline and I grew up experiencing the disproportionate attention and resources female athletes receive compared to their male counterparts. As young as 4th grade, I was the starting point guard for the Linden Elementary boys basketball team because no girls team existed. In high school, the girls basketball team played on Thursday nights while the boys team got the primetime Friday night slot. The older we got, the more obvious and frustrating the disparities became, finally becoming too much for us when the 2018 WNBA Finals was played in a college gymnasium.

Shot Clock began as our way to immediately put more women’s sports content out to the world. Social media has proven to be an invaluable tool for those who typically aren’t given a seat at the table and right away, we found a fan base who wanted to hear more! Primarily existing on Instagram and Twitter, we highlight women’s sports news, data, and relevant content with a “Facts Only” mentality.

Our focus on data sets us apart from other platforms because we encourage our followers to draw their own conclusions from the facts and figures presented to them. As an individual, I feel very passionately about the power of women’s sports and get angry by the inequalities women in sports endure on a daily basis. As a company, we set aside those emotions and strategically present data in a way we hope will ignite the same passion in others.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Because the foundation of our content is numbers and data, it was critical that we present accurate information with sources to back it up. One example: a topic we focus on is women’s sports TV viewership. We may create a post detailing the viewership data of a recent sporting event and highlight the growth year-over-year. Women’s sports critics will jump up and down saying “nobody watches women’s sports.” Our power comes from the undisputable sources proving that people do in fact watch women’s sports and would actually watch MORE if it were available on TV more often (according to a recent study from National Research Group). Being a reliable source of information has allowed us to continue to grow and maintain our credibility.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

We believe educating people on the inequalities between men’s and women’s sports is a key factor in leveling the playing field. Believe it or not, most people don’t really know how unequal the industry is.

Women receive 4% of sports media coverage. They receive less than 1% of TV broadcasting hours. Those are basic and proven facts that most people either do not know or would not believe.

A strategy we’ve used for both growing our clientele and educating our followers is simply comparing women’s sports data to men’s sports data. For example: rather than just posting that the College Softball World Series drew an average of 1.7M viewers in 2022, we’ll put those numbers next to the College Baseball World Series viewership which was 1.6M viewers. Putting those numbers next to each other provides our followers with the context they need to hopefully draw the conclusion that people do care about women’s sports – sometimes even more than men’s sports.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: shotclock_media
• Twitter: shotclock_media